Lawyers at the trial of Mr Larry Dunne are due to make closing statements in Birmingham Crown Court today. Mr Dunne (50) is accused with another man of taking part in an armed robbery at a building society in May 1997, during which a shot was fired.
In evidence yesterday, Mr Dunne said he had stayed with his daughter and her boyfriend after moving to Birmingham in 1995. He had been released from Portlaoise Prison that year after serving 10 years of a 14-year sentence for drug trafficking.
Mr Dunne told the court that his daughter died in March this year and he had moved into her house in Birmingham at the beginning of May. Before this he had been renting a bedsit.
Both the accused deny knowing each other. However, the prosecution argued that telephone numbers in address books in both defendants' homes proved they knew each other.
A 19-year-old niece of Mr Dunne gave evidence yesterday in his defence. She said Mr Dunne was in poor health and had a bad back during the time of the building society raid.
Mr Dunne was part of the family blamed by gardai and community workers for the first large-scale trafficking of heroin to Dublin in the 1980s.
In October 1980, Garda Drug Squad detectives raided a Rathfarnham house of Mr Dunne and found £60,000 worth of heroin, cannabis and cocaine. He was convicted in 1983 for drugs possession and supply. However, he had absconded during the last days of the trial. He was arrested in Portugal in 1985, and returned to Ireland to serve his sentence.
